There's some truth to the stereotype (there've been dozens of polls on here and they all match the most healers = girls thing, not to mention personal experience) but it will never ever be true for everyone. I'm a dude and I love healing. I knew a girl IRL who main tanked Firelands. There will always be people who break the stereotype.

Bottom line articles randomly use him/her. One Blizzard article about mages said "she" for example. Not a big deal.

it's terrible but it's my own personal sexism I guess but I have never even tried healing because I think it's girly. I apologize for it but it's my personal take. I will say that I have a few good friends who are male and love playing heal classes and I love playing a Tank so it works out but the point is that most people don't share my notion

When I was playing wow, I was the menliest of menly healers (with a female caracter xD)

Originally Posted by wonderlii

Neither is neither.. lol. I love healing. I don't think of it as "Oh, mister hero! Let me sustain you while you slay our enemies!"

It's more "Shit, must balance all these green bars and know when/when not to use things to make green bars go up faster at the expense of not having them for "x" time."

Nothing very "girly" about that imo

Damn I forgot how much I used to love those menly green health bars, when I think of testosteron I think of the color green for some reason, I loved turning those puny little girly red bars into BIG MUSCULAR BEARDED green bars

I healed all WotLK, but I'm the manliest man I know, not to mention the best healer.

Honestly though, playing a draenei female holy paladin (and probably (because it sucked) the only pvp-shockadin in the world at that) I've seen "her" and "she " used alot in reference to my person. Some were really surprised when they heard me talk so I guess there's quite alot of stereotyping going on there. For reference, out of our healing team of 5-6 people in ICC25 I was for a time the only male, though it later it was a 2-4 split. My ICC10hc team had a 1-1 split in a raid with I think 3 or 4 females.

Might be that it has changed in the 2 years since I stopped playing, alot can happen in that time, but that's the guild I played in back then at that time.

I healed all WotLK, but I'm the manliest man I know, not to mention the best healer.

Honestly though, playing a draenei female holy paladin (and probably (because it sucked) the only pvp-shockadin in the world at that) I've seen "her" and "she " used alot in reference to my person. Some were really surprised when they heard me talk so I guess there's quite alot of stereotyping going on there. For reference, out of our healing team of 5-6 people in ICC25 I was for a time the only male, though it later it was a 2-4 split. My ICC10hc team had a 1-1 split in a raid with I think 3 or 4 females.

Might be that it has changed in the 2 years since I stopped playing, alot can happen in that time, but that's the guild I played in back then at that time.

Well i think is kind of normal that people refered to you as she/her because you were using a female character, that have happened to me a lot (using my female draneai priest) and i do the same, i know that the person i'm talking to is a guy but i still refer to him as her or she if it's in game chat but on RC i refer to that person as he/him

Most girls play healers, it's just like. ya. most of the time I think boyfriends get them into the game, then have her go heals so they can play together easier.

It was never Hardcore Vs Casual. It was Socialites Vs. Solo players

Originally Posted by ringpriest

World of Warcraft started life as a Computer Roleplaying Game, where part of the fun of the game experience was pretending to be your character. Stuff like applying poisons and eating food enhanced the verisimilitude of the experience of playing a fantasy character in another world. Now that game has changed to become a tactical arcade lobby game.

If it's a healer then it's a girl. Back when I played WoW nearly all healers were girls. Rarely would I see a DPS or tank girl. I guess it's just the laid back click-based action of the healers that give ample room for ... well anything else. DPS is a race and top dpsers are all nuts about their egos. Heck I would of spammed recount every LFG or so when more than half of the overall dmg done was just me alone Tanking is another epeen booster. I've only once in like 2-3 years of playing seen a female tank. I gotta say that was a brief visit 'cause after a few guild runs she went DPS and then switched chars.

Personally I wouldn't say the roles are either to difficult or require a vastly different set of skills, it's just the people in-game that give others a hard time. DPS just starting out? Prepare to be humiliated by a random ego-maniac while you hunt for gear. New to tanking? Just wait until you get kicked for not knowing what to do or not having the gear to compensate. When you go out as healer you can just stay detached from the group. Sure you can fail, but more often than not a good tank can carry a whole group (not to mention imba dps). I'd say girls are more of a "peaceful race" that avoids altercations and because of the nature of the game they all went towards a more "safe" role. I rarely saw healers take blame or be thrown out.

Still all roles played well take a certain skill and attention to details that you need to learn while leveling and raiding to get up there with the best. I'd say play what you want not because of your gender or that you are afraid of a little labeling but to actually do the thing you WANT to do not the thing you're LEFT WITH. I've seen to many players avoiding difficult tasks on encounters simply because they'd prefer a more "safe" area. Personally I would have loved to see more female tanks & DPS and female only guilds ... but I guess that I'll never see 'em in WoW.

Originally Posted by SilkforCalde

... Challenging Shout is not and has never been a taunt. It doesn't even remotely function like a taunt.

Oks..., actually i don't feel ofended by that XD, but in my opinion, you shouldn't feel ofended... why? because is not a big deal, unless they hear you talking (in vent, RC, skype or whatever) and they still think you're a girl XD

Tanking and healing both have core aspects to them that are very stereotypically male and female. That said in games and especially MMOs, gender stereotypes and boundaries are much looser than real life with huge numbers of guys playing with pretty girl avatars in dresses, and girls killing big dragons with big swords. Part of the appeal I guess.

I see the tanks more as the alpha male role if you want to really stereotype and be a bit more specific. These are kind of your take charge players so an aggressive female can also fit in here pretty well. Gender usually isnt the best way to categorize players anymore as many people mentioned. Personality types is a broader and gender neutral way though.

If you do a search there are some good threads about class/role choices and Myers-Briggs personality types. That is a much better approximation although you find all types or people playing all types of classes. By and large though you definitely see a majority of true tanks( not the ones getting a quick queue ) will fit more into certain personality types.